- What this study is -

I want this study to be a biblical analysis of a subject that has functioned largely outside of the Bible, or in a way that more closely reflects the Old Testament bureaucracy and not the New Testament idea of the priesthood of all believers.

I firmly believe that a fatal flaw in all of humanity is our desire to pass the buck and to shirk our responsibilities.  We see this with Adam in Genesis 3, and subsequently he blames Eve for his inability to take responsibility.  I believe we, as Israel and others before us, have abdicated our God-given responsibility to be priests to our God and fulfill our roles “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood” (Eph.4:13a).

We have elevated some and begged them (like the Hebrews at Mt.Sinai) to speak to God for us.  In the mean time, we have separated our religion from our daily practice.  Leaders often wonder why they can’t get discipleship across, and it is because of the very traditions and practices that are nurtured.  The whole system is flawed.  Something must be done to regain what was intended for each and every believer.

- What this is not -

First off, this is not a rant from a dissatisfied believer.  Yes, I do think there can be more.  I do think each believer is to play an integral role, and that a mentality like that must be recaptured.  But it must be done biblically, not just argumentatively.  I have felt these ways for some time, and I hope that some feel the same way.  God has no doubt used our old ways, but what we see today differs significantly from what we see in Acts.  If we can believe for one second that the same Spirit at work there is the same Spirit at work today, then it must be our practice that has allowed the radical difference in expression of ecclesia (gathering).

- What I hope to accomplish -

I really want to provoke thought.  I want people to analyze why they have done what they have, and if our traditions are biblical.  I want to analyze what Christ-like leadership is, and start a dialogue of learning.  I am weary of church leadership looking more like Rockefeller’s horizontal leadership than the leadership analyzed in Acts, Titus, and Timothy.   I don’t know if anyone will even read this, but I know that I will benefit significantly from the study.

If you’ve read this, thanks.  If you have any comments feel free to leave them.  Until next time…

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And that’s what I find far too often.  Granted there are still no doubt those who have not bowed their knees to the gods of name, renown, or glory.  But overall, we resemble exactly the culture we cry out against.  We despise one another, we backbite, we seek leadership in order to elevate ourselves something the Lord clearly condemned when He said ” the Gentiles lord over the other Gentiles, but it shall not be so among you” (emphasis added).  If you can’t tell I’m frustrated.

There is something more.  Something our mega-churches, and mega-trons, and mega-systematic theologies have missed.  Too often I find things labeled “Christian” look exactly like their “secular” counterparts except with the name of Christ attached.  Is that really what Jesus wanted?  Or did He know what he brought was entirely different in such a way that there were only two responses: repent and believe or persecute.  Somehow, we have believed that the “ignore” option is a third valid choice for people.

I believe that the Church is for more than cultural change or morality.  It is the place where the life of God flows freely between believers.  It is a place where God is made visible through the actions and lives of His people.  And those things change more than cultures.  When the Church lives as it should, it advances the Kingdom of God and lays waste to the Kingdom of Darkness.  Entire lives and communities are radically changed forever.  This is a stark contrast to where we find ourselves today.

But I have hope.  I know that God is advancing His Kingdom in places that before seemed impossible.  I know that He is coming again to rescue His people, sift the wheat, divide the sheep and goats, and reign forever among His people.  I hope in that.

For now, I feel a burden for the church in my country.  I feel we need a call back to Jesus.  A call back to the ways of Jesus that so diverge from the ways of America.  We need to be reminded that the two are not synonymous, and that often our traditions are man-made systems and regulations that hinder our ability to worship God the same way that the Pharisees traditions hindered them.

For now, I will live in the midst of the frustration and hope in the One that has redeemed us to a new Life and a new Way.

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A Magna Carta
for Restoring the Supremacy of
Jesus Christ
a.k.a.
A Jesus Manifesto
for the 21st Century Church

by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.

Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.

It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.

Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.

Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .

1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.

2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.

3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.

4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?

To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.

5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.

6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.

7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.

8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.

Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.

The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.

9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)
The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.
10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”
If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.

The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.

But in our two most recent books—From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful—we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:

Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.

Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.

Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.

Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.

Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:

Ask ye what great thing I know, that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win? Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.

This is that great thing I know; this delights and stirs me so:
faith in him who died to save, His who triumphed o’er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the crucified.
—
Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.
He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.

Amen.

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Anyways, once inside, I find myself in an extremely different world.  Not a fictional world, like under the mountain in the Lord of the Rings (though I do often hope to find a hidden throne room), but a world where the beauty of very simple things is manifested.  I mean, seriously, a cave is just rock, dirt, and water.  Yet, the formations are endless, and the elements make up the home of many incredible animals and insects.

And it was in the cave the last time that I realized how God had made the cave something beautiful by using elements that are so simple, and how He does the same everyday in our lives.  How Paul knew what he was talking about when he said that God chose the simple and the weak to confound the wise and the strong.  When God works, there is no question.  The elements He uses have no inherent value in themselves.  Rather, they are made useful and beautiful because they are in the hands of the Endlessly Creative, the Joyous Maker.

Too often I find myself forgetting that I am only dirt at my core.  I think that God needs me to be something or to learn something special so He can use me. I forget that God seldom uses showy, flashy elements, but, rather, consecrates the dirt, the rock, and the water, in order to display a power far beyond what we know.

The cave reminds me, that at my heart I am dirt.  And as I surrender what little I have to Him, He will use it in the beautiful plans He has.  I am really grateful for the cave, and for the natural, simple beauty that reminds me who I really am.

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